BlizzCon 2010 Recap and Summary

So the team is straggling back in from BlizzCon, and slowly but surely catching up on our sleep and resuming our normal duties!

For those of you who are looking for our minute-by-minute coverage, you can find it on our Live Blog page. If, however, you're looking for a recap and summary of the festivities—and of course all the pictures we took—then this is the place!

Check after the break for thoughts, news (summarized in a more readable format), and pics!

Opening Ceremonies

Blizzard had a tremendous success with the Monaco Pandaren pet that they were selling for charity, and as a result are planning to release another pet for charity— a . The pet is scheduled to go on sale in November.

The StarCraft II development team put together four custom maps, with in-development versions playable at BlizzCon. They will appear for download online shortly, and all four will be free to download and play.

Aiur Chef is a 3-round cooking puzzle game, where zealot chefs compete for the title of Executor Chef. I didn't get the chance to play this one, but I got the vague impression it was earlier in development than the others.

Left 2 Die is (obviously) a parody of the Left 4 Dead franchise, with you and several friends teaming up to take on a brand new (and yet strangely familiar) strain of zerg.

Starjeweled I DID get a chance to play, and it is awesome. It's a faithful rendition of the original Bejeweled on one side of the screen, but instead of earning you points, combos earn you energy—energy which you can use to spawn AI-controlled units that cross the board and attempt to destroy your opponents base. Last base standing is the winner.

Blizzard DOTA is Blizzard's own take on the classic "Defense of the Ancients" game type, which originated with custom maps for Blizzard's own games and now lives on in original titles like League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, and the upcoming DotA 2 from Valve. The best part is that all the heroes are classic characters from Blizzard games—Sylvanas Windrunner, Zeratul, and more. Blizzard called it "something like the Super Smash Bros. of Blizzard." Who knows? Maybe we'll even see an appearance from The Lost Vikings!

Chris Metzen announced the fifth and final class in Diablo III: The Demon Hunter! The Demon Hunter is clearly a professional, a bounty-hunter type—unlike the classic Demon Hunter archetype from the Warcraft universe. D3's Demon Hunter dabbles in shadow magic but primarily does her fighting with traps, gadgets, and conventional ranged weapons, like crossbows—she's specifically pictured dual-wielding hand crossbows John Woo style. More information in the links below:

World Of Warcraft Panels

Dungeons & Raids Panel

From now on, you will never have to go traipsing around Azeroth looking for the quests for a particular dungeon. All instance quests will have their quest-givers inside the instance.

There will be heroic versions of Forte di Zannascura and Miniere della Morte, but there will be normal versions as well—appropriately tuned for (approximately) the same level range as they were before, but with all the new content and encounters.

Blizzard is making radical revamps to all the classic dungeons, with three main goals: classic dungeons should be shorter, less confusing, and more fun. With this in mind, they're cutting down some instances and breaking others into multi-wing dungeons. Dungeons which were specifically mentioned for this treatment were Bastioni di Roccianera, Uldaman, Maraudon, Caverna dei Lamenti, and Sunken Temple—though it's safe to assume many others will get changed as well.

Cataclysm is bringing in a new raid philosophy as well—specifically, Blizzard wants:

More dungeons available at launch,

Cooler raid encounters, and most importantly...

Bite-sized chunks. Blizzard wants raiding to be more manageable, and for a competent guild to be able to clear a raid in a single night of dedicated play.

Flexible Raid Lockouts: We already talked about being able to "downshift" raids from 25-man to 10-man and back, but Ghostcrawler also talked about how Normal raids will no longer have raid IDs. Instead, raid progress will be saved by character, on a per boss basis—you'll be able to join any raid you want, as long as it wouldn't give you an opportunity to kill the same boss twice.

Note that Heroic Raids will still work on the Raid ID system.

You will also have a detailed interface explaining your current raid lockout status, and you'll be able to link this information to other players in chat just like you can link your profession information.In the 4.1 patch (the one AFTER Cataclysm), Blizzard plans to roll out an upgraded dungeon map system. Each dungeon map will include detailed information about each boss—their name, a 3D image, lore/flavor text, loot, and abilities.

New Dungeons/Raids Coming in 4.1

Firelands: An indoor/outdoor raid in the Elemental Plane of Fire. 7 bosses, leading up to a fully re-vamped version of Ragnaros.

The Abyssal Maw: An underwater 5-man dungeon based on what Blizzard learned in Vash'jr. Blizzard describes it as "Nothing like Oculus".

Pictures

Live Raid

Be sure and go back to the Live Blog for the play by play on this one—it's better if you get the details written as they're happening. To summarize, though—the raid this year was Paragon, vs. a collection of some of the scariest bosses in WoW history! The blues called it "The Defense of Orgrimmar", and it took place right outside the gates of the new, Cataclysm-era Orgrimmar.

The third round was a curveball—4 uber-buffed 5-man bosses from the new Cataclysm dungeons! They faced down Rom'ogg Bonecrusher, Forgemaster Throngus, Ozruk, and Commander Ulthok! Rom'ogg gave them a particularly nasty time with Chains of Woe, and a nasty Cleave finally brought down the raid—but time was running short by this time, and Blizzard gave them a bye to the next round.

The climactic battle actually drew Paragon up to Orgrimmar's ramparts to do battle with four of Azeroth's most fearsome dragons: Gyth (with Capoguerra Rend Manonera in tow), Vaelian the Corrupt, Piragon, and Theralian! Paragon even managed to eke out a win on this one—only to have a developer-controlled Deathwing fly in from above, and wipe the raid with a single breath. Blizzard left us with a final thought: "This never would have happened if Thrall was warchief."

Open Q&A

Costume, Song, & Dance Contests

Comedian Jay Mohr came back again to host this year, and did an admirable job despite some organizational difficulties. The dance contest even featured a live band, which some people loved and some hated — me, I was just impressed that they knew the lyrics to Tunak Tunak Tun.

The (unfortunate) highlight was due to a mistake in the setlist—the dancer was attempting to do the undead male dance, but the band was given the (much slower) undead female music to play. The guy made an earnest attempt to dance to it, but eventually attempted to hang in the air too long—and broke his leg on the landing. He had to be carried off the stage by the WoW community team.

The guy should have won.

(That guy who rushes out to help him right at the beginning, with the mustache? That's Bashiok. :D)

Also, major props to the guy who proposed to his wife on-stage as she showed off her costume! +1000 nerd cred right there! Most of my pictures from the costume contest came out really poorly, but the few that didn't look terrible I've included here! For more (and awesome) costume contest pics, be sure to check out our good friend Mike B's (aka Fony) Flickr photostream here:

Cataclysm Cinematics

This was a short one, and I didn't attend—it was Fewyn who wrote the live blog for this one. I can give you the basics here, though:

Firstly, there was some discussion about the Cataclysm Intro Cinematic we posted about a little while ago. This is one of the most complicated cinematics Blizzard has ever attempted—when the effects designers were first shown the storyboards, they laughed. The flames on Deathwing's flight alone are over 40GB in size!

Second, the brand new Worgen cinematic debuted!

All of the assets for cinematics like these are located elsewhere in the game, but the team spends a lot of time working on transitions, special lighting effects and the like—things like the rain in the worgen cinematic above.

Diablo III Panels

A Hero Emerges

Going in, the devs knew they needed a ranged class. The original concept for the Demon Hunter was actually a Ranger, pictured below. They moved away from the Ranger concept because he was too light, and they wanted a darker alternative to the prayer and holy magic of the Monk.

They also started exploring the idea of having a Demon Hunter who was actually a demon himself—which was a cool idea, but they figured it would make it kind of hard to sell your junk if the villagers were always running in fear. They experimented briefly with a half-demon—like, a human with a demonic arm—but finally scrapped the idea because no one wanted to play a character with a demonic arm, and then never actually used it in melee. They finally settled on glowing eyes, to suggest the dark powers the Demon Hunter was messing around with.

The idea was to keep a constant balance between three themes: conventional ranged weapons, traps and gadgets, and shadow magic.

The Demon Hunter is also getting a "Grenade" ability, which actually bounces off of walls and floors using real physics.

Gameplay Features

The "Talent Tree" style concept for skill progression has been abandoned. You now have a simple skill list. A new slot unlocks every few levels, and each level gives you a skill point. Each level you can put a point in an existing skill, or buy a new one—if you have the slots for it.

Rather than putting points in your attributes as you level up, D3 is adding a new system called "Traits". These are class-specific passive bonuses, which increase things like armor, or dodge chance. Each class has a different selection to choose from, and each one has it's own custom name, lore, and flavor. These make each character feel a lot more unique—attributes are just numbers, but traits feel like more of a part of the game world.

D3 is adding a new feature called the Talisman, which is basically a separate inventory just for your charms. The idea of having to choose between the convenience of inventory space and the extra power granted by charms was...not a fun choice.

This was mentioned last year, but: Runes are back, but now they modify actual skills rather than modifying items. There are several different colors of runes with different effects (e.g. one color tends to cause you to regenerate life or mana in some way, one color tends towards multiplying the number of attacks or projectiles, etc.), and each color has 7 different ranks. The higher rank the rune is, the crazier and more over-the-top the effect.

PvP

PvP in Diablo III will be completely confined to the new battle arenas—no one will ever attack a play who doesn't want to be attacked.

There are no PvP rewards. The only thing you get for PvP-ing is bragging rights. There will be a progression and a match-making mechanic, but they will favor dedication over power. Lots of points if you win, but still some points still if you lose.

Diablo III will never be balanced around PvP, and it will never be an eSport. As soon as you make a game about eSports, competitive gaming, and PvP, then character balance has to dictate every decision you make. Diablo II was about exploring the different possibilities of your character, playing with different builds, and finding a way to play that no one else had ever found before, and Blizzard wants to preserve that in Diablo III. And also...

There are over 96,886,969,344 possible builds in Diablo III...per character. There is no possible way that anyone could balance that many builds. Blizzard knows a lot about game balance—including when to give up. As a result, focus will be on team-based play rather than one on one pvp. There will be a heavy focus on counters

Crafting Sanctuary

This was a great panel—a lot of discussion about the way that Blizzard crafts art and set pieces for Diablo III, and a few juicy tidbits about the way the gameplay in D3 is expected to work.

Monsters

All monsters have at least three states—idle, suspicious, and hostile.

Crafting monster AI is a difficult subject, because it's not always clear what the goals are. You can't just craft Ai where the goal is to kill the player as efficiently as possible—that's not a recipe for a fun game. You have to use other tricks—like having the monsters run near the player to attack rather than directly to the player, or building halting steps into the monster's walking animation.

Obviously, the most important part of a monster's behavior in D3 is what it does when you kill it. D3 is focusing heavily on the death animations, which is something I think we can all be glad about.

Weapons and Armor

The inventory icons in D3 are actually based off of the item's 3D model when you wear it on your character—so if the same breastplate looks different on a Wizard than it does on a Barbarian, the armor's icon will reflect that.

D3 will feature Armor Dyes! These will be random drops that you can use (as a consumable) to change the color of any piece of armor. There will even be rare armor dyes which have even flashier versions of the normal colors.

When you wrap around to a higher difficulty setting, your gear will NOT reset. Nightmare-level gear will always look more awesome than Normal, and Hell-level gear more awesome than that.

Artisans

One of the risks of a random loot system like D3s is the fact that your progression is unpredictable. If you get a bad set of rolls, you may go a long time without a critical piece of gear. In D2, Vendors were your safety net—if your gear fell too far behind in a certain area, you could always buy gear at the vendor. In D3, that safety net is your team of Artisans.

You have three Artisans:

A Blacksmith who crafts heavy armor and weapons, as well as repairing and adding sockets to gear.

A Mystic who deals in wands and staves, and can enchant and identify items for you.

A Jeweler, who crafts rings and amulets, and can combine gems (like a Horadric Cube) and for a price, can pry a gem out of a socket intact.

Your Artisans will actually level as you level—there are some pictures below showing the progression of the tents in the caravan.There are 14 different levels of gem quality in D3, and only the first 5 levels ever actually drop from monsters.

Commenti

Commento di Mudskipper

on 2010-10-26T03:35:09-05:00

This was awesome :D Thanks for all the pics... I watched it on rayV online. wish i was there!

Commento di junglecat

on 2010-10-26T03:39:44-05:00

Blizzard had a tremendous success with the Pandaren Monk pet that they were selling for charity, and as a result are planning to release another pet for charity— a Moonkin Hatchling. The pet is scheduled to go on sale in November.

TOTALLY gonna get the new pet! =D

Most of my pictures from the costume contest came out really poorly, but the few that didn't look terrible I've included here!

Aw, none of me. =(

Commento di Moltenfury

on 2010-10-26T03:41:55-05:00

First! :PThis was awesome :D Thanks for all the pics... I watched it on rayV online. wish i was there!

Aint that the Truth. I did the same..Soooooo Wish i was there

Commento di Moltenfury

on 2010-10-26T03:43:11-05:00

Most of my pictures from the costume contest came out really poorly, but the few that didn't look terrible I've included here!

Aw, none of me. =(

Who were you in the costume contest?

Commento di junglecat

on 2010-10-26T03:54:32-05:00

Who were you in the costume contest?

Blood elf mage with the golden staff. I came on stage right before the Gnome spy in the Horde mailbox.

Commento di Kruga

Commento di Sephiroth

on 2010-10-26T12:15:23-05:00

Another major feature of patch 4.1 will be enhanced dungeon and raid maps. While dungeon maps currently show the dungeon layout and locations of bosses, 4.1 will allow players to find a host of new information for each boss, including 3D boss portraits, the lore behind the encounter, a full loot list, and a breakdown of boss abilities (by phase, if applicable).

Not sure if it is known or not, but will these maps be accessible anywhere? If so, does that mean addons like atlasloot are essentially built-in?

Commento di pandapoonage

on 2010-10-26T13:16:48-05:00

Aiur Chef is a parody of Iron Chef from foodnetwork

Commento di Interest

on 2010-10-26T13:32:40-05:00

Blizzard DOTA is Blizzard's own take on the classic "Defense of the Ancients" game type, which originated with custom maps for Blizzard's own games and now lives on in original titles like League of Legends, Heroes of Newerth, and the upcoming DotA 2 from Valve. The best part is that all the heroes are classic characters from Blizzard games—Sylvanas Windrunner, Zeratul, and more. Blizzard called it "something like the Super Smash Bros. of Blizzard." Who knows? Maybe we'll even see an appearance from The Lost Vikings!

OMG.

MUST. GET. SC2.

Commento di Wirxaw

on 2010-10-26T13:37:38-05:00

"Nothing like The Oculus"

Ok...now this dungeon will be my most hated one....Blizzard..for ****'s sake...stop listening to the mindless $%^&...Nerf, buff, w\\e, BUT DO NOT REMOVE SUCH CONTENT! The single fastest(excluding AzjolN), most rewarding and not boring heroic of ALL WotLK.

Commento di junglecat

on 2010-10-26T13:38:22-05:00

Who were you in the costume contest?

Blood elf mage with the golden staff. I came on stage right before the Gnome spy in the Horde mailbox.

Commento di Interest

on 2010-10-26T14:14:32-05:00

Another major feature of patch 4.1 will be enhanced dungeon and raid maps. While dungeon maps currently show the dungeon layout and locations of bosses, 4.1 will allow players to find a host of new information for each boss, including 3D boss portraits, the lore behind the encounter, a full loot list, and a breakdown of boss abilities (by phase, if applicable).

Not sure if it is known or not, but will these maps be accessible anywhere? If so, does that mean addons like atlasloot are essentially built-in?

Awesome. Fleshing out the dungeons = win.

Commento di Monday

on 2010-10-26T15:50:02-05:00

So guys, my math teacher went to Blizzcon... and took Ghostcrawler to dinner.